A Stylistic Approach to Teaching Literature: Thomas’ “And Death Shall Have No Dominion” As an Example
Rawand Sabah
English Language Department, Faculty of Education, Tishk International University
ABSTRACT
There are various approaches to teaching literature from numerous perspectives. Considering teaching literature classes from stylistic viewpoint is a new trend in this context. For this reason, the aim of present study is to seek the significance and relevance of stylistic approach in general and using aspects of deviation and foregrounding in particular to explicate and analyze literary text at university level. While most other traditional methods are teacher-centered approach, this new emerging method is providing more participating and interacting roles to engage student to examine and evaluate the linguistic features of literary works in order to interpret required meaning through prominent linguistic feature and literary theories. In this respect, the current study is utilizing one of the early poems of Dylan Thomas. This approach will help learners comprehend the linguistic role in literature and appreciate the use of linguistic value in literary works. Using this approach will also enhance the communicative competence as it is different from traditional methods. When analyzing text in this way, students will also learn to experiment everyday language and other literary genres. In this regard, the study has a pedagogical importance to teaching literature. The paper concludes that teaching literature through stylistics is multi beneficial trend as it enables leaners to use linguistics, literature, and stylistics simultaneously, find out how form and content relevant to each other and how the poet used his diction to carry the tone and mood in his poem. The paper ends with list of references and further recommendations.
Keywords: Analysis, Approach, Literature, Method, Stylistics, Thomas
Doi: 10.23918/vesal2022a35